Snow and ice building up on city streets in Northwest Arkansas

Several chances for snow and ice are forecast for parts of the area in the next several days.

This could be bad news for many cities in Northwest Arkansas that are reeling from storm after storm and running low on materials to treat roads.

The city of Rogers was hit hard by the winter weather. Although main streets through the city have improved, most side streets remain packed with snow and ice, frustrating many drivers.

Rogers Mayor Greg Hines said he understands the frustration. He said his street department pretreated roads before the first storm on Sunday, but had trouble keeping up as the next system rolled in Tuesday.

Much of the difficulty comes from having limited resources, Hines said.

“We have 400 linear miles of streets in the city of Rogers and roughly 11 to 12 pieces of apparatus, depending if they're all working, to dispatch out on these streets,” Hines said. “You could plow it, but if you did, you’d take your road up (because so much is already caked onto the streets).”

For the first time in Rogers history, the city has hired contracted plow graders to help clear the streets, Hines said. It cost between $180 and $260 an hour, but it was more cost-effective than buying all new equipment when some winters, there will be very little snow, he said.

“One year with no events, another year with one event, and then this year with four or five events. It’s hard to make the call to spend millions, literally millions upon millions of dollars for equipment that normally would just sit,” Hines said.

The city is also have trouble getting materials to treat the roads. With all of the Midwest hit hard by snow and ice in the last week, cities everywhere are trying to restock for the rest of the winter, Hines said.

Officials at the Rogers Roads Department said they are hopeful a new shipment of road salt should arrive by the end of the week, but there are no guarantees.

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